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Two parties in talks with Mad Decent over uncleared Harlem Shake samples
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 12 March 2013
So you nick a few samples for your underground dance track, everyone gets on with their lives none the wiser, then it somehow becomes part of a new internet phenomenon and all those sampled musicians emerge from the shadows demanding their cut of the action. Such is life.
Two separate artists have come forward each claiming ownership of one of the two phrases that appear in the Baauer track ‘Harlem Shake’, which has now officially soundtracked 4,917,538 one-idiot-dancing-bam-lots-of-idiots-dancing videos around the world (well, quite a lot anyway).
With the track now earning buckets of cash from YouTube plays, not to mention more conventional download monies on the back of the ‘Harlem Shake’ video craze, retired reggaeton artist Hector Delgado has come forward to claim ownership of the repeated “con los terroristas” line that appears in the track, while Philadelphia rapper Jayson Musson, it turns out, is behind the crucial “do the Harlem Shake” moment.
Musson, who originally said “do the Harlem Shake” in a 2001 track called ‘Miller Time’, released by the group Plastic Little, says he has been in “friendly talks” with Diplo-led label Mad Decent, which released ‘Harlem Shake’, about getting a cut of the loot now that the track is bringing in uber royalties.
Having apparently called Baauer, real name Harry Rodrigues, to thank him for “doing something useful with our annoying music”, Musson told the New York Times: “Mad Decent have been more than cooperative during this”.
But Delgado, now a preacher, is being much more Christian about the whole thing and kicking up a big fat fuss. Well, to be fair, it’s his former label, Universal-owned Machete Music, which is being more hard line in its legal talk with Mad Decent, though Delgado himself did tell the Times “it’s almost like they came on my land and built a house”.
Meanwhile Delgado’s former manager, Javier Gomez, who first noticed the use of the “con los terroristas” line in the latest YouTube phenomenon, added: “[Delgado will] get what he deserves. We can turn around and stop that song. That’s a clear breaking of intellectual property right”.
